Longchamp: Fall 2015

The ubiquitous fashion IT-girl Alexa Chung stars once again in this season's Longchamp campaign. This is the fourth collaboration between Chung and Longchamp, and for good reason: Chung personifies the classic, modern sophistication and modest charm synonymous with the brand's aesthetic.

Alexa Chung's street style

Photographed by Max Vadukul in Wynwood, Miami, this campaign continues to highlight the significance of art in Longchamp's legacy as not only is the set of the campaign based in an art

gallery neighborhood, but the collection held inspiration from the renowned Memphis Group.

Alexa Chung in the fall 2015 Longchamp Campaign by Max Vadukul.

My illustration of the Fall 2015 Longchamp Campaign 

Longchamp has a long history of collaborating with and supporting a multitude of designers and artists such as Sarah Morris, Mary Katrantzou, Jeremy Scott, Tracey Emin and Thomas Heatherwick among many. I look forward to many collaborations to come.

Jeremy Scott for Longchamp

Mary Katrantzou for Longchamp

Sarah Morris for Longchamp

Balenciaga Fall 2015

The Balenciaga collection and campaign is my favorite of the season.

The Fall 2015 Balenciaga collection by Alexander Wang heralded some of the house's most powerful statement pieces; the rounded, bulky shouldered jackets, the asymmetrically slit skirts, heavy woolens and tweeds paired with form-fitting fabrics and particularly edgy cigarette pants; statements mastered by Wang's predecessor, Nicolas Ghesquiere.

Below: images from the Balenciaga Fall 2015 collection

Balenciaga by Nicolas Ghesquiere:

Balenciaga Fall 2008

Balenciaga Fall 2006

Balenciaga Fall 2008

The campaign this season, photographed by the ever brilliant Steven Klein perfectly epitomizes the Balenciaga aesthetic;  masterful, modern, stark, mysterious. Starring Kate Moss and Lara Stone, the campaign balances their bold features and the starkness of the setting, creating an air of mystery and elegance.

Below: images from Balenciaga's Fall 2015 campaign by Steven Klein, featuring Kate Moss and Lara Stone:

My illustration of the Fall 2015 Balenciaga campaign

A Return to Art

I have always loved drawing and painting. My love for art and design came, no doubt, from the creative chemistry inherited through generations of my family. As a child and teenager, I would ecstatically hole myself up in my room to copy from my many art history books or create my own fun illustrations.

My passion for art continued at university where I specialized in Art History; I not only loved illustrating, but thoroughly enjoyed absorbing everything I could about the history, rhetoric,  politics, symbolism and significance of art as well as proselytize my theses into submission like a nerdy van Damme.

Courreges photographed by Bert Stern. Illustrated by me.

Yet somehow over the past number of years I have distanced myself from my own creativity. I feel it is something many do and is not entirely a conscious decision; this dismissal of the things that make us deeply happy eventually develops into a despondent exchange for the rite of adulthood.

Having realized this (for a loooong time), I  have decided to make a positive stand to own my creativity again! I have challenged myself to draw something every day for 100 consecutive days. As one of my greatest loves is fashion, I have been taking inspiration from the many designers, models and photographers who have formed my appreciation in that field.

I have strayed a bit from blogging as well, but will post some the most iconic images in fashion that have inspired me tremendously.

Linda Evangelista backstage at Chanel. Illustrated by me.

Happy Birthday, Marpessa Hennink!

Anyone who remembers the glory days of Supermodel-dom (late 80s, early 90s) will remember the face of Marpessa Hennink. She was everywhere and she was fabulous, standing out as an exotic beauty in a Caucasian dominated industry. Muse to Dolce & Gabbana, Versace, Karl Lagerfeld and countless other designers, Marpessa paved the way for the next generation of models of color such as Yasmeen Ghauri, Nadege, Veronica Webb, Brandi and many more.

In 1987 Marpessa won the Fashion Oscar (Oscar de la Mode) in Paris for Best Runway Model and earned the nickname "Catwalk Contessa". Living a dream life in Ibiza as an Interior Designer/Photo Production entrepreneur/Mother, Marpessa still acts as model and muse today.

Happy Birthday, Marpessa!  To celebrate, here are some of my favorite Marpessa moments:

Marpessa and Linda Evangelista in Chanel, 1988

wink, wink

Marpessa with Karl Lagerfeld

Marpessa closes the show with baby-faced designers Dolce & Gabbana in the 80s

Marpessa (top left) with Versace girls Yasmeen Ghauri, Carla Bruni, Nadege, and Naomi Campbell. (1992)

Backstage at Versace (bottom left corner)

Marpessa in a Valentino Ad, 1989

Marpessa (left) with Gianni Versace, Christy Turlington and Gail Elliot 

Marpessa in 2009

Marpessa in 2011

Marpessa on the Runway at Alberta Ferretti, Fall 2011 collection

You can and should follow Marpessa on facebook here
and on instagram here

In Defense of Kim/Kanye for Vogue

I have been reading American fashion magazines since I was a child.  I made my own fashion magazine with my sister when we were around nine years old and living in Connecticut in the 80s called "Toque", an obvious homage to Vogue. I can't pinpoint the exact moment I realized I loved fashion but for some reason fashion both fascinated and resonated with me.

In High School my friends and acquaintances mocked my interest in fashion, positing my interest as vanity and shallowness. But I understood that although fashion is functional it is one of the greatest methods of self expression, and therefore fashion is art.  I looked to Vogue (among other great sources) to quench my thirst for more inspiration and knowledge of fashion design and its history. I learned about silhouettes, textures, fabrics, the most influential designers and their significance to the world of design; I got to see an inside look at the fashion industry - the models,  the designer's homes and work methods ... I loved it all.

Vogue was great and then something happened in the late 90s that really irked me: they started placing more and more celebrities on the covers. Before the late 90s there was only an occasional celebrity on the cover, then suddenly this changed. No longer were inspirational models or perhaps an opportunity for models of color to make the cover - no, Vogue and all of the other fashion magazines decided to employ celebrity covers and content as a way to increase readership. And I'm sure it helps. In the very least it supplies the internet with plenty of troll fodder.

Which finally leads me to the point of this post:
Why do people care so much WHO is on the cover of Vogue, anyway? Not that many people even read the magazine. American Vogue is the 54th most circulated magazine in the United States with a circulation of under 1.28 million issues per month (this is not how many magazines are sold, but rather are distributed to subscribers and vendors). Some magazine called Family Fun has a circulation over over 2.16 million, but I don't hear anyone talking about it. You can see magazine rankings and circulation statistics at Find The Best. 

For April 2014, Vogue has put Kim Kardashian and Kanye West on the cover and the internet exploded. It seems many don't find KIMYE 'good enough' to grace the cover of vogue. But why not KIMYE when Vogue sold its soul to celebrity long ago and presented the likes of Britney Spears, Jessica Biel, Jennifer Hudson, Sienna Miller, Sandra Bullock, Kristen Stewart, Kate Hudson, Carey Mulligan and countless others on the cover?

Madeleine Davies from Jezebel made a case for KIMYE in yesterday's post: "7 People Who Deserved Vogue Covers Less Than Kim and Kanye" . Her point and mine being that there are so many celebrities on the covers of fashion magazines that even Kim Kardashian is more plausible a cover star than many. That says a lot.

When all of these celebrities took over the fashion magazine industry I must admit that I personally felt betrayed. Gone were the magical moments with great models, stylists and photographers. Gone was the connection communicated between designer and muse. Now covers and most editorials (and ads) are mainly vehicles for stars to promote their films or records. You can almost feel their managers counting money from behind the lens. The reality of our society now is unfortunately one of gross celebrity obsession and consumption. Let's face it, celebrity sells and they are going to be on the cover of Vogue for a long time. Its honestly an event for a model to be on the cover of American Vogue.

I don't buy Vogue too often now and I've made a point  not to purchase a magazine with a celebrity I strongly dislike on the cover. I don't consider myself celebrity obsessed but I do find the internet outbreak of the April 2014 cover to be hilariously ridiculous. All this banter over a magazine that is read by roughly .004% of Americans.

the April 2014 cover

some recent Vogue covers:

Fall 2014: Déjà vu, Balenciaga

Fall 2014 has been an interesting season thus far, and for me this is primarily due to the apparent 'references' from a variety of designers' past collections. In this post I will focus on the 2014 obsession with the house of Balenciaga under the tutelage of director Nicolas Ghesquiere.

It started in New York with Prabal Gurung's collection. See the boldly draped black and white capped sleeved tops and the tight grey knit, long sleeved jerseys paired with gathered skirts from Gurung; there is no denying 'inspiration' from Balenciaga's Fall 2008 collection.

Yesterday in Milan, Fay presented a bold collection which I believe pays more than just homage to Balenciaga's Fall 2011 collection. What fashionita could forget Balenciaga's super large hounds-tooth jackets? Well, in case we did, Fay is reminding us (?). Fay even mimicked the styling of the oxford shoes as well as the black & white  AND black & grey hounds-tooth print  jackets with black sleeves displayed in the Balenciaga collection.

Not that Nicolas Ghesquiere isn't cut from the same cloth, so to speak, as far as  taking inspiration to the extreme. In his Spring 2002 show he did admit to lifting a key look from Kaisik Wong, a brilliant costume designer of the 70s.

vest by Kaisik Wong

And Ghesquiere did it again in his 2010 resort collection where he clearly must have loved the groovy "parrot jacket" by East West Musical Instruments:

Is there a difference between "taking inspiration" and flat-out copying? When do references become almost criminal? Yves Saint Laurent won a lawsuit against Ralph Lauren in 1994 for 'stealing' the design of YSL's famous tuxedo dress from 1966 (Read more from the New York Times here).

We all seem to recognize the wrongfulness of mass-manufactured fakes in the fashion world such as handbags, sunglasses, perfumes and shoes - but somehow high fashion designers seem to get away with letting their 'inspiration get the best of them'.

Julien Macdonald Fall 2014

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On day 2 of London Fashion week, Julien Macdonald unleashed a fury of sexy, red-carpet ready dresses for his Fall 2014 collection. Although I found this collection questionably reminiscent of the work of Mark Fast (his skin-tight knitted outfits) and Zuhair Murad (Murad's penchant for transparent gowns adorned with detailed embroidery, sequins and bead work), I loved it anyway.

Photos: style.com